SUMMARY: On Night 2 of the Democratic National Convention, delegates will officially nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential candidate. Meanwhile, new developments in the ongoing saga over the U.S. Postal Service, with the Postmaster General delaying some policy moves and President Trump saying he wants to add funding. Judy Woodruff talks to Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor.
SUMMARY: Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, left more than 30 people dead over the weekend. What can be done to prevent incidents like these? Amna Nawaz talks to Larry Ward, chief marketing officer of Gun Dynamics, and Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, for two different perspectives on potential solutions to the problem of rampant gun violence in the U.S.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): Back now to our look at guns in America.
Excluding El Paso and Dayton, just since yesterday, at least 88 people were shot and at least 28 people were killed by guns in 27 states. That's according to the Gun Violence Archive.
In fact, we rarely report on these events: gang warfare, domestic violence, robbery. And that excludes suicide, the largest factor for gun deaths.
Amna Nawaz reports that the number of guns in America, some 393 million of them, more than one per person, is greater than in any other country and that, even on days of relative calm, guns kill roughly 100 people in this country every day.
SUMMARY: The weekend mass shooting in El Paso appears to have been motivated by white supremacist and anti-immigrant sentiment. In response, President Trump said Monday the FBI has been tasked with disrupting “domestic terrorism.” What is the nature of this movement, and how can we address it? Amna Nawaz talks to the University of Chicago’s Kathleen Belew and George Washington University’s Seamus Hughes.
SUMMARY: Deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton prompted immediate outcry among candidates for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination. Several of the contenders denounced President Trump for rhetoric they said foments violence and hatred. One of them, Rep. Tim Ryan [D-Oh], represents Ohio in Congress. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss “weapons of war” and whether there is hope for gun reform in Congress.
SUMMARY: After mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, we examine the threat of domestic terrorism and the nation's gun policy debate. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, one of the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the El Paso and Dayton tragedies, the “horrible reality” of the white supremacist movement and why he thinks strict gun laws have decreased homicides in New York.
SUMMARY: Mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton have pushed gun safety back into the forefront of national politics. On Capitol Hill, how are lawmakers responding? Lisa Desjardins joins Judy Woodruff to discuss an unusual move from Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the current landscape of proposed gun legislation and whether there is a realistic chance for any expansion of background checks to pass.
SUMMARY: How do we explain and stop mass shootings like those in El Paso and Dayton? Some Americans point to guns, saying they're too common and easy to obtain, while others emphasize the mental and emotional conditions that could drive perpetrators to inflict such horror. Amna Nawaz talks to Dr. Garen Wintemute of UC Davis Medical Center and Duke University's Jeffrey Swanson for analysis of both theories.
SUMMARY: And now we turn back to guns in America. And we look at the politics.
Joining me is former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo. He's a Republican who represented Florida for four years, until 2018.
SUMMARY: At least 22 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso on Saturday. The alleged shooter referenced white supremacist ideology in a manifesto posted online shortly before the massacre. Judy Woodruff talks to William Brangham, reporting from El Paso on why the violence is so “jarring” in a largely welcoming and harmonious community adjacent to the U.S. border with Mexico.
SUMMARY: Less than 24 hours after a shooting massacre in El Paso, another nine people were gunned down in a busy nightlife area of Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning. Police quickly killed the alleged gunman. Judy Woodruff talks to Yamiche Alcindor, reporting from Dayton on how stunned residents are coping with the tragedy, what they think is causing the violence and the political change they want to see.
SUMMARY: On Wednesday, President Trump traveled to Dayton, Ohio, where a gunman killed nine people and wounded 26 early Sunday morning. Ahead of his visit, Mayor Nan Whaley expressed concerns about the President’s previous rhetoric and said she hoped his visit would “add value” to the grieving community. Whaley joins William Brangham to discuss what she told Trump about her stricken city and gun safety.
SUMMARY: President Trump visited grieving El Paso Wednesday. An “El Paso Strong” rally was held to coincide with his arrival -- and protest his rhetoric on race and immigration. Judy Woodruff talks to Dan Bush, reporting from El Paso, about the mood in the “deeply divided” city, how residents felt about the President’s visit, Trump’s agenda while in town and what Sen. Ted Cruz [R-Tx] said on the somber occasion.
SUMMARY: Authorities in El Paso, Texas, said a gunman opened fire Saturday morning inside a local Walmart, killing multiple people. A suspect is now in custody, and at least 22 people were injured during the attack. For more on the shooting, Dennis Woo, operations director at NPR affiliate KTEP, joins Hari Sreenivasan from El Paso.
SUMMARY: Investigators of the El Paso mass shooting, which left 20 people dead and wounded at least 26 others, are treating the massacre as a case of domestic terrorism and will file capital murder charges against the suspect, now in custody. They are also trying to determine if an anti-immigrant “manifesto” posted online was penned by the alleged 21-year-old white male shooter. Megan Thompson reports.
SUMMARY: A gunman, now in custody, opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, killing 20, and wounding dozens of others. Texas Tribune reporter Julian Aguilar joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype from El Paso for more on how the community is coping with the loss.
SUMMARY: Less than 13 hours after the massacre in El Paso, Texas, a gunman killed nine people, including his own sister, in downtown Dayton. Police said the carnage lasted less than a minute before they arrived on the scene and killed the shooter. NewsHour Weekend’s Megan Thompson reports on the latest.
SUMMARY: A gunman in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people and injured 27 in under a minute early Sunday morning, before he was fatally shot by police. Among the dead was the shooter’s sister, making family dynamics a main focus for investigators. Jim Bebbington, editor of the Dayton Daily News, joins Hari Sreenivasan with the latest.
SUMMARY: Nine people were killed and 27 were wounded in a mass shooting in the downtown entertainment district of Dayton, Ohio. The police patrolling the area fatally shot the gunman within a minute of the attack. The shooting took place less than 24 hours after the killing in El Paso, Texas, of at least 20 people. Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype.
SUMMARY: Hate-filled online posts or “manifestos” have often been purposely left behind by shooters for the public and authorities to find. New York Times opinion writer-at-large Charlie Warzel, who covers information technology, joins to Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the ‘gamification’ and radicalization of white supremacy on online forums.
SUMMARY: While reporting on the white supremacist ideology behind mass shootings, are journalists inadvertently magnifying the message? Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research project at Harvard University, joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how reporters should -- and should not -- cover mass shootings.
SUMMARY: The man who is third in line of succession to the Presidency, the most powerful Republican in Congress, is calling it a career and will not seek re-election. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's decision today rippled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, and beyond. Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff to discuss how other Republicans are reacting and the race to fill his role.
SUMMARY: What does Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's retirement mean for the Republican Party? Judy Woodruff talks gets reaction from Chris Buskirk of American Greatness, and Charlie Sykes of The Weekly Standard.
SUMMARY: They are a living political dynasty, and they rarely weigh in on the politics of the day, but in the new book “The Last Republicans,” former Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush reflect on the man currently inhabiting the Oval Office, and much more. Lisa Desjardins sits down with author and historian Mark Updegrove to discuss their father-son relationship and their shared ethos.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week’s news, including allegations of sexual misconduct against and very different responses by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore and Sen. Al Franken, President Trump’s criticism of Franken despite his own history being accused by women, plus the GOP tax plans.
Hari Sreenivasan (NewsHour): But first to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
It’s a bit like Groundhog’s Day here. We’re going the cover some topics you probably have never thought of before, sexual harassment and taxes. But there are developments, after more and more developments of both of these stories. And we will get to some more stuff, too.
But this week, we saw new women coming out and alleging sexual misconduct by Roy Moore, some of them underage. And then we had Al Franken’s behavior in 2006, including a disturbing photograph that nobody can deny.
They are not parallel incidents, but the responses have been very different.
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, I mean, I guess it’s inevitable, death, taxes, and harassment these days.
It seems to me the one failure that we’re seeing among a lot of people is how partisan the reaction would be, starting with the President. Sexual harassment is not a Republican thing, or it’s not a Democratic thing. It’s just a thing. And it’s amazing how many people are reacting depending on which party the person is in, the guy is in, how their reaction is.
I personally, overall, still think this is a good thing. Our standards are raising. People who have done misconduct are being punished, an we’re cleaning out the swamp, as they — we’re supposed to say.
Alongside that, I think it’s important to make some distinctions among the different levels of sin here. It seems to me what Harvey Weinstein did and what Roy Moore did has the highest level of vileness, and should be career-enders.
Then there are other levels of sin which probably should be career-enders, setting a predatory environment, whether it’s Bill Clinton or the guy — some of the journalists who have been involved.
And then I would put Al Franken so far in a different category, frankly. What he did was callous and narcissistic and insensitive and just pathetic. But if it’s one time, and if he can apologize, and then do real penance, my first instinct is that it shouldn’t be a career-ender for him.
Hari Sreenivasan: But, Mark, oftentimes it’s not one time. Oftentimes, we start to reveal a pattern of behavior that might be in the background, as more people feel empowered to speak up.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: No, and that’s what we have found so far in these instances. It’s not usually a single, solitary event.
But I think David makes a very persuasive point about what we have with Roy Moore, quite frankly, the reaction, in the opening news summary, when the governor, Kay Ivey, of Alabama says she has no reason not to believe the women, but she’s still going to vote for Roy Moore.
Now, there is a disconnect there. And the only explanation can be just blind, unyielding, total partisanship, and I don’t care.
Let’s be very blunt about it. There were feminists who rallied to Bill Clinton’s support during his long, complicated lying to the American people about a disproportionate power relationship that he had with a 21-year-old intern and adulterous behavior, who rallied to his support because Bill Clinton was pro-choice on abortion.
And there are those now who are ready to skewer Roy Moore — and I’m not going to deny that he needs skewering — for ideological reasons, and because he has proved he’s anti-woman by his political positions.
But if we’re just talking about behavior here, and not blind partisanship, I don’t think that Al Franken’s behavior rises to the level of eviction from the Senate or anything of the sort.
That is not — but for a party that has based an awful lot of its appeal on identity politics, that we are the women’s party, that we believe in women’s rights, that we respect women, and that Republicans don’t, this is a body blow.
And Al Franken has been a major fund-raiser for Democrats, and he has been an aggressive inquisitor on committees and — representing the Democrats. So, I think it is serious.
I don’t know where it’s going to stop, and — but I think, in the final analysis, we have to come to grips. It is power. And it’s been men exercising power, generally speaking, with — almost overwhelmingly speaking, and the women in the position of supplicant, without the resources, without the means of protesting or just bringing to justice to these people.
David Brooks: If I could add one thing on the — first on the Clinton thing, I think it’s — we just have to look back and say the people who ignored the testimony of Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick helped set the stage for this.
And the Democrats who defended Clinton in those Clintons, they helped set the atmosphere for what we’re seeing and for the behavior that Harvey Weinstein and the rest can get away with.
The second thing to be said is, there is a word for what defenders of Roy Moore are doing, the people who said they were vote for him nonetheless, and — well, two words. One word is idolatry, and the other word is heresy, because the people who are putting — who are going to sacrifice morality for politics are making an idol out of politics.
They’re saying politics is higher than morality. And no honest person can possibly believe that. And if you’re putting politics above personal morality, above the way we treat each other, above the nature of your own soul, you’re just — you’re making an idol out of it.
And that is the ultimate in heresy. And to see — I saw a tweet from Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, defending Moore, you know, sort of, oh, they’re all a bunch of hypocrites up there.
It’s just appalling. It’s just — it’s almost mind-boggling that people who — especially people who have been steeped in any faith could make this kind of fundamental error, which is warned against again and again in the Bible, and to be heretics. They’re heretics.
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Hari Sreenivasan: Let me ask you if you are surprised about something else that’s happened this week, which is the progress of the Republican tax plan. Do you think that it — what do you think happens in the Senate?
Mark Shields: I would say, first of all, I think that Paul Ryan, whom I have criticized, certainly did perform as speaker. He got it through. He rallied his Republicans, mostly, to it.
There’s just a couple things about it. I have been going to Republican Conventions since 1976. I have heard the party time and again solemnly pledge in its compact and covenant with the American people that we will support and fight for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
I hope that never appears again, because they have proved that they don’t care about that. All this tax cut is about, this tax thing, is cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. That’s all it is.
Everything else is window dressing. And there are other factors to it that are important, that touch people’s lives.
And, usually, when there’s a tax cut, there is some behavior is required. For a charitable deduction, you have to give — make a donation to a charity. For a child care credit, you have to have a child, and there has to be some — there is nothing required of these corporations.
There is not a nickel they have to spend in investment. There’s not a nickel they have to spend in retraining. There’s not a nickel they have to spend in anything for their own workers.
And the idea that they’re going to pass this on and increase wages goes back to John Galbraith’s theory of economics, which is, if you stuff enough oats into the horse, that, eventually, a little will pass through to the road, and the sparrow will be fed. And I just find it absolutely mind-boggling.
And the only other aspect to it that I found fascinating is the Republican Party that has stood for states’ right, and the states that have actually taxed themselves to improve their education and to improve their health care are going to be punished.
Hari Sreenivasan: Yes.
Mark Shields: That’s been in the tax code since 1913 that it was inducted. They’re going to remove it.
Hari Sreenivasan: So, David, that analogy of trickle-down economics, I have not heard before.
David Brooks: Still following the biology of that thing.
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks: No, I wish it was only a corporate tax cut, because I think there’s a lot of good economic evidence that, if you give corporations tax cuts, they have more cash on hand, they do invest, and that there’s a fair bit of data on this. And so I wish it were that.
And I think there are other good things in the bill. Capping the mortgage interest deduction is a good thing. I think maybe adjusting the state and local taxes is a good thing, because 90 percent of the benefit goes to people making over $100,000 a year.
The problem with it is, first, it explodes the deficit. Second, it is a raw piece of political exploitation, taking the tax code and benefiting our people, at the expense of blue states. And we shouldn’t turn the tax code into a spoils system.
And, third, it’s taxes the universities and the nonprofits in a way that I think is unconscionable. So, I’m against it. But there are some good things in it. If they fell back to a corporate tax cut, which had sympathy in the Obama administration, it would be a little happier story.
SUMMARY: The Senate's top Republican Mitch McConnell told reporters that he believes the women who have accused Roy Moore of inappropriate actions and that Alabama's GOP candidate must step aside. While the former state Chief Justice insists he is innocent, McConnell’s condemnation comes as another woman has spoken up. Lisa Desjardins reports that voters appear to have mixed opinions.
SUMMARY: Another woman came forward on Monday to accuse Senate candidate Roy Moore of assaulting her when she was 16, sparking additional political backlash from his own party. But allegations of sexual misconduct against teenage girls haven’t seemed to shake Moore supporters in his home state. Judy Woodruff gets an update from Don Dailey of Alabama Public Television.
SUMMARY: GOP lawmakers have called for Roy Moore to step aside from the Alabama Senate race amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward teens. How does that tension fit into a larger party rift? John Yang talks to Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org, about what’s at stake with the special election and how the GOP tax reform plans are shaping up.
